Riding to Walhalla: the role of horses and horsemen in italian funerary rituals in the early middle ages

In the Italian peninsula, the transition between the 7th and 8th century can be considered a period of stabilization and balance that may have facilitated cultural exchange between diverse cultures and the adoption of customs that would have led to the development of early medieval society. Such cultural complexity and variety has been identified in the two Langobard cemeteries discovered in Campochiaro (Vicenne and Morrione): their distinguishing characteristics not only involve the generic presence of horse burials but rather the ways with which horse and horseman were deposited in the same grave. The burials of Campochiaro have features that are quite similar to those found in eastern Europe, and to the Avar Hungarian cemeteries in particular, such as Zamárdi, located on the southern shores of Lake Balaton, where grave goods contain artefacts providing evidence of widespread trade relations. In Campochiaro, the presence of horse and horseman in a single grave not only emphasises the indissoluble bond between opposing elements that were also obviously integrated into everyday life, but implies that the funeral may have been a very complex ritual whose interpretation is not so easily perceived since cultural segments of such a ceremony must still be better understood and completely deciphered.